Nature for Water: 25th Year of World Water Day

Water is a vital part of life and it deserves to be used properly by every single living being on the planet.

Every year on the 22nd of March, World Water Day is celebrated all around the world to create awareness about the importance of water. This year, this date has extra significance, since it is its 25th anniversary. The theme and campaign for this year is Nature for Water which aims to spread nature-based solutions for the water challenges that the world faces in the 21st century. Nature for Water campaign focuses on raising awareness about nature-based solutions to the water sourced issues. Lets start by having a look at nature based solutions.

Basically, natural-based solutions help the management of water availability and improve quality by some simple techniques, such as restoring grasslands and reconnecting rivers to floodplains. They are not certain solutions for the critical level of water sourced issues but, at least, they can provide innovative and cost-effective options for the first steps. Apart from that, it also plays a significant role in some other sustainable development goals which are concentrated on poverty, hunger, good health, clean energy, industry, innovation, sustainable cities and communities, responsible consumption and production and life below water.

One of the most useful solutions is conservation agriculture which is based on minimizing soil disturbance, maintaining a continuous soil cover of organic plants and cultivating diverse plant species. Secondly, restoring the landscapes is also a beneficial alternative for supplying water. Finally, there is a recent project in China, called ‘Sponge City’ to improve water availability in urban settlements. By 2020, sixteen pilot cities will implement a range of measures that capture water and divert it back into natural storage for cleaning purpose.

The campaign is organised and coordinated by the United Nations and each country has several ways to support this movement. To show your support, you can download the documents of the United Nations and share them on your social media accounts. For sure, it is not the only way to support the movement – you can create your own solutions and projects and register on the campaign with the name of your country.

I hope that this article will create a bit of awareness around Greece and all the countries that follow our blog.